US reports say News Corp is likely to keep a stake in MySpace as it chooses between the low-ball offers of $20-35 million from funds Specific Media and Golden Gate Capital. News will also pick up the tab for a further staff cull before the sale. News paid $580 million for MySpace in 2005. A […]
Telecom Italia says that merchant bank Mediobanca is looking for buyers of TV network La 7. La 7 is Italy’s third-largest network after RAI and Mediaset, but has been losing money for years. The channel is 77 per cent owned by Telecom Italia. However, the network continues to invest and has a 3.5 per cent […]
A report by Enders Analysis predicts BSkyB earnings will double over the next five years. It says EBITDA will balloon from 2010’s £845 million (€953m) to £1.7 billion in 2015 from revenues up from £5.7 billion to £8.1 billion in the same period. Veteran analyst Toby Syfret believes the earnings will flow as a period […]
Almost on the eve of the UK government giving News Corp permission to start a bargaining process to acquire the 61 per cent of BSkyB that it doesn’t already own, James Murdoch says that News Corp isn’t by any measure big enough to really compete on the world stage. Speaking at the Cannes International Festival […]
News Corp has agreed with regulators the final terms of a merger remedy to allow it to proceed with its proposed bid for British Sky Broadcasting, reports the FT. The document has been passed by Ofcom to the office of Jeremy Hunt, the culture secretary, with an announcement that he will put the revised remedy […]
The Wall Street Journal reports that VoD streaming site Hulu is “considering its options” including a possible sale of its assets after an unidentified potential buyer approached the company. The LA Times says that approach was from Yahoo. Hulu is owned by NBC Universal, Disney ABC, News Corp/Fox and Providence Equity Partners. Providence chipped in $100 million […]
Croatian fixed-line operator Voljatel has acquired two local cable TV operators and is eyeing a third. The two operators in question are Kerman and Antena JD and negotiations are underway for the acquisition of another cable operator in Sibenik, according to Voljatel CEO, Boris Levenski. Financial details of the deals were not disclosed. Voljatel, which […]
US investment house Criterion Capital Partners, the firm that bought Bebo from AOL exactly a year ago, is now looking to snap up another distressed media asset in Arqiva’s SeeSaw. The buy will save SeeSaw, the failed reinvention of the failed BBC/ITV/C4 Kangaroo project, from closure. No other buyers were found following a strategic review […]
Com Hem the Swedish cableco has acquired the cable and IPTV operations of Canal Digital Cable TV for SEK85 million (€9.3 million). The operator is subsidiary of Canal Digital Sweden and has 220,000 subscribers. Com Hem plans to merge the cable network into its own and resell the IPTV business, which has 22,000 customers, to […]
DVR software specialist SageTV has revealed on its website that it has been acquired by Google. The likelihood is that Google will add SageTV’s TiVo-like recording capability to GoogleTV and the Google cloud. “We’re thrilled to announce that SageTV has been acquired by Google,” said the statement. “Since 2002, we’ve worked to change the TV […]